ABSTRACT
In the course of a commentary on Nelson Goodman’s Ways of Worldmaking, Carl G. Hempel formulated a problem for physicalism that has come to be known as “Hempel’s dilemma.” He wrote:
I would add that the physicalistic claim that the language of physics can serve as a unitary language of science is inherently obscure: the language of what physics is meant? Surely not that of, say, eighteenthcentury physics; for it contains terms like ‘caloric fl uid’, whose use is governed by theoretical assumptions now thought false. Nor can the language of contemporary physics claim the role of unitary language, since it will no doubt undergo further changes too. The thesis of physicalism would seem to require a language in which a true theory of all physical phenomena can be formulated. But it is quite unclear what is to be understood here by a physical phenomenon, especially in the context of a doctrine that has taken a decidedly linguistic turn.
